MANSFIELD, Conn. – Six-time Little East Conference Player-of-the-Week Carley Stoker (Sandy Creek, NY) pitched a complete-game three-hitter and hit a clinching two-run home run in the bottom of the sixth inning to send second-seeded Eastern Connecticut State University into the championship round of its pod in the 2021 LEC softball tournament with a 3-1 victory over third-seeded Plymouth State University Tuesday afternoon at Clyde Washburne Field.

Now 18-1 at home, No. 6 nationally-ranked Eastern (27-2) faces sixth-seeded Keene State College (8-22) in the championship round of the pod Thursday at Washburne Field beginning at 1:30 p.m. Eastern has two chances to win one game against once-beaten Keene to advance to the best-of-three finals Saturday.
 
Keene stayed alive in Tuesday's late game with a 9-5 victory over Plymouth (15-13) after losing its opening-round game to Plymouth, 8-3, earlier in the day. Keene eliminated Plymouth with its first win over the Panthers this year in six contests.
 
Top-seeded University of Southern Maine needs one win Thursday to win its pod and advance to the best-of-three finals. The Huskies, who defeated No. 5 Castleton University, 4-1, Tuesday, need one win in two tries Thursday against No. 4 Massachusetts Dartmouth. The Corsairs eliminated Castleton Tuesday night after being shut out by the Spartans, 4-0, earlier in the day.
 
Stoker (14-0) and Plymouth freshman Alexis Michon (9-5) were locked in a scoreless tie Tuesday before the Warriors broke through with their three runs in the bottom of the sixth. Playing for the first time in three weeks, graduate centerfielder and LEC batting leader Cassie Woods (Mystic) doubled to left on the first pitch of the inning -- reaching base for the 21st straight game -- tagged up and went to third on Michon's diving grab when Eastern failed on an attempted sacrifice bunt, and scored on junior first baseman Brooke Matyasovsky's (Orange) 95^th career hit on a 1-2 pitch. With two outs, Stoker then crushed her ninth home run of the year on the second pitch she saw from Michon, making it 3-0.
 
Plymouth, which had lost four regular-season games to Eastern by an average of 6.5 runs, threatened against Stoker in the seventh, who struck out the potential tying run in the form of sophomore centerfielder Rachyl Parslow to end the game. Limited to two singles through six innings by Stoker, Plymouth had pushed across its run in the seventh on graduate third baseman Jen Landers' two-out single after a walk, wild pitch and passed ball moved sophomore first baseman Sam McCann to third.
 
Averaging 11.4 runs this season, Eastern was held to its second-lowest hit total of the season by Michon, who threw only the ninth complete game of the year against the Warriors with her five-hitter. Michon fanned five and walked one and allowed only one baserunner on a walk through the first three innings. In the fourth, she escaped unscathed when she gave up a leadoff triple to senior rightfielder Alexis Tyrrell (Torrington) -- who reached safely in her 11th straight game -- in a scoreless game. She got LEC home run and total base leader Matyasovsky and Stoker on strikes in-between throwing out junior cleanup hitter Julia SanGiovanni (East Haven) on a botched suicide squeeze for the second out.
 
In three starts against Plymouth this year, Stoker was 3-0 with a 1.47 ERA in 19 innings, striking out 12 and giving up only two extra-base hits.